This week, the family of Gabby Petito announced that they plan to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the police department in Moab, Utah, where Petito and her boyfriend Brian Laundrie were questioned last year about a possible domestic dispute. According to news sources, shortly after Petito and Laundrie were questioned by police on Aug. 12, 2021, Petito, 22, went missing.
Petito’s body was discovered last September in the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming. Laundrie, who was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park in North Port, Florida, wrote in a notebook that he killed her, according to the FBI. In a press release announcing the lawsuit, an attorney for the Petito family, Brian Stewart, said officers from the Moab City Police Department “failed to properly investigate the reported domestic assault, and thus failed to fully appreciate or respond to Gabby’s life-threatening situation.”
“While the full evidence has not yet been made public, when it is released, it will clearly show that if the officers had been properly trained and followed the law, Gabby would still be alive today,” James McConkie, another of the family’s attorneys, said in the press release. “Failure to follow the law can have deadly consequences, as it did in this case.”
According to sources, body camera images from the Aug. 12 incident show Petito and Laundrie talking to an officer after her 2012 Ford Transit was pulled over by Moab police. In one image, she appears to be crying while sitting in the back of a police vehicle.
In a statement at the time, Moab police said that “insufficient evidence existed to justify criminal charges” in that incident.
Officials confirmed on Sept. 21 that a body found in the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming was Petito. A coroner later ruled that she had died of “blunt-force injuries to the head and neck, with manual strangulation.”
Shortly after Petito’s body was found, the city of Moab announced it would launch an independent investigation into its police department’s handling of the incident involving Petito and Laundrie.
In January, the independent report said it found police made “several unintentional mistakes” responding to the incident, including not issuing a domestic violence citation to Petito after she claimed she hit her boyfriend first, and not taking a statement from a 911 caller who had reported seeing a man slapping a girl, according to the Associated Press.
“Would Gabby be alive today if this case was handled differently? That is an impossible question to answer despite it being the answer many people want to know,” Capt. Brandon Ratcliffe, the Price, Utah, police officer who led the investigation, wrote in the report. “Nobody knows and nobody will ever know the answer to that question.”
In this case, could a better investigation have prevented Petito’s death? Hard to say. But as we often see, investigations done well can lead to BIG victories in the courtroom or more favorable settlements. We know that success or failure in the courtroom or during the settlement process depends on having the very best, most detailed information about a case. That’s why great attorneys and law firms across the country work with the worldwide team of Santoni Investigations who will make sure you know everything to maximize the settlement process or win your case in court!
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